


Bookends

by TheWalkingGrimes



Series: Tales of District Four [21]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mental Health Issues, Sex Trafficking, but it's very canon-typical, but very brief and mostly a 'what if' and non graphic situation, just tagging because I do not wish to trigger anyone, very briefly mentioned thoughts of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:55:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28190511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWalkingGrimes/pseuds/TheWalkingGrimes
Summary: Without someone to protect, Finnick's not sure he even exists.
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair, Mentioned Katniss Everdeen & Finnick Odair, Primrose Everdeen & Finnick Odair
Series: Tales of District Four [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018845
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	Bookends

The notice arrives a month before the 66th Games Victory Tour, on perfume scented stationery. 

_Dear Mr. Odair,_

_This notice serves as a reminder that your presence has been requested in the Capitol for the conclusion of the Victory Tour. Details about transportation will be provided by your Escort when she arrives for the celebration in Four._

_Cordially,_

_The Office of President Coriolanus Snow._

His brother gets to it first, reading it out in the exaggerated Capitol voice that they’d use as kids. He makes extravagant eyebrow gestures to go along with it, missing the way that Finnick half-chokes on his toast.

 _“Well,”_ Lotan teases him, tossing the notice onto the table. “They really do think you’re special for some reason, don’t they? They don’t invite just anybody to the Capitol for the Tour.”

He probably expects Finnick to make some joking response, a sarcastic self-important quip about how the people of the Capitol must be devastated to have gone so long without seeing his face, and really can Lotan _blame_ them? 

Finnick just reaches for the letter, barely registering that he can’t feel the thick cardstock against his numb fingers. Just like the toast suddenly tastes like nothing, crumbling into dust on his tongue. His eyes trace over the cursive words again, willing them to transform into something else, for the word _“not”_ to appear between _“presence has”_ and _“been requested.”_

Requested. There’s a joke of a word if he’s ever heard one.

“C’mon Finn.” Lotan continues more gently, clearly noticing his lack of reaction. “It won’t be like when you went before. There won’t be any Games. Just parties. Might even be fun.”

Something heavy and thick rises up in his throat.

_Fun._

He was supposed to have a year. A whole year, to put himself back together, to grow up enough so that he would be able to face… this.

_“I believe the time between now and the next Victory Tour should be sufficient...”_

The words flash back to him now, a vague echo like crackling radio static when you go out too far from the coast. Finnick had forgotten about those words. How could he have forgotten? 

(Maybe it had been on purpose.) 

_Teeth scrape against the shell of his ear, graze down his neck, and bite down into his shoulder._

“Finnick?”

_Cruel laughter and hands pressing into him, claiming him, and pain. Pain, pain, painpainpain-_

“Hey, look at me-”

Someone’s standing over him now, _and the Gamemaker’s breath is in his ear, huffing out in sharp grunts,_ and there’s a hand pressing down onto his shoulder -

And he lashes out, with a half-shove, half-punch that sends Lotan staggering back. 

Then immediately shrinks back, because he’s not supposed to fight back _and nails are digging into his chin and accidents do happen you know -_

“I’m sorry!” He cries, horrified and sick and there’s a part of him that thinks _no, they couldn’t possibly kill them over something that small_ but he can’t take the risk of finding out, could never live with himself if it were true and -

“Shhh, shhh, baby it’s me.” The soft voice cuts through his panic. It’s too light, too gentle to be the Gamemaker’s. He would know that voice anywhere.

Finnick cracks his eyes open to see them reflected back in his mother’s. Her face is tight with concern but she smiles when he looks at her.

“Hey, shhh, it’s okay Finnick you’re safe.” She soothes him. “You’re home, you’re with me, and you’re safe. No one is going to hurt you here.”

He reaches for her, feeling calm and protected as he sinks into her embrace. As if nothing and nobody could touch him.

“Mom,” Finnick croaks, but the rest of the words die in his throat: _I’m scared. Please help me. Don’t let them hurt me. Please. Help me. Help me._

“It’s over, I promise.” His mother whispers, kissing his hair. “It’s all over. You’ll never have to go back baby. Never again.”

He grabs onto her desperately, thinking that if he just stays here in her arms, then the pretty words she’s murmuring will be true. She smells like salt and vanilla and when Finnick was small he used to think that she was strong enough to scare away all the monsters and all the evil in the world.

Now, all he can feel is how thin and breakable her ribcage feels under his hands. The faintest trace of a wheeze when she breathes. The way her entire body fits within his arms now. When did he become so much larger than her?

Finnick latches onto that feeling. Gathers himself.

“I’m okay.” He mutters, pulling back and shooting a sheepish look up at his brother, who’s watching Finnick like he’s some cornered animal. “Sorry, just - still a little jumpy I guess.”

“Don’t worry about it, it was a weak punch anyway.” Lotan says, removing his hand from the mark on his face. “But you just remember what I said, yeah? The Games are over. You don’t need to be scared.”

Finnick looks between his brother’s put-on nonchalance, and his mother’s concerned expression - she’s searching his face the way that she would whenever he’d be running a fever but didn’t want to miss out on a day of Training so he’d lie about it and pretend he was fine - and the decision to hide isn’t a decision really. 

“Yeah, they’re over.” He lies, putting on a smile, as if he’s relieved at the reminder. “I’m safe. We’re all safe.”

(When they collect him to fly him out to the Capitol for the last stop of the Victory Tour, Finnick gives his family an easy smile and jokes about smuggling them back some of the fancy Capitol sweets for them to try.

He doesn’t fight back.)

* * *

“I brought you something.”

Someone’s talking to him. Finnick wants to ignore them, because people are always trying to talk to him about things that aren’t important, things like schedules and medication and _assimilation,_ but there’s something about this voice that nags him. He shouldn’t ignore it.

So he peels his cheek away from the sweaty pillowcase that smells like ass and blinks in the direction of the voice.

It’s a girl. A young girl, too young for the worried crease between her eyebrows. Something about her reminds him of Adelaide, even though at the moment Finnick isn’t sure why he thinks that - she looks nothing like his baby sister and is years older than Adelaide would ever be.

The girl pulls out a length of rope from her medical apron. “We talked about hobbies, the other day, remember?” She reminds him, her voice tempered and gentle. “Katniss says you’re good at knots.”

 _Katniss_ \- a spark of awareness flares in Finnick, and he remembers why this girl reminds him of Adelaide. She’s not his baby sister, but she _is_ Katniss’s. 

_Primrose Everdeen._

The voices, distorted through the monitor and his memory, flash in his mind and Finnick flinches. 

He’s sitting on the train watching the recaps of the Reapings, in the bar car trying to take the edge off the fact that the Complex was so set on their female Tribute this year that they hadn’t sent in a male - and let a terrified thirteen year old boy be Reaped. 

And then there’s District Twelve of all places, sending in a volunteer. 

_I volunteer as tribute!_

Honestly, what the fuck. 

Finnick downs his drink, trying to get the little girl’s haunting screams out of his head as she watches her older sister get dragged off to her inevitable death.

Her screams follow him into the Quarter Quell Arena.

_Katniss! Please help me! Katniss, Katniss!_

_Finnick! Finnick, don’t let them hurt me!_

Annie’s voice intertwines with Prim’s - a harmony of misery.

“They’re hurting her.” Finnick chokes out, here, _now,_ in the underground hospital room with its ugly yellow light and its pillows and sheets that always smell bad, even if they’ve just come straight from the wash.

“I know.” Prim says softly.

“It’s my fault.” He tells her, and he shouldn’t be saying any of this to her. She’s so, so young, younger than he was when he went into the arena the first time. But he’s selfish and she’s kind and one of the only people in this strange place (with their identical uniforms and medications and their needles and their arms pushing him back into bed _Citizen Odair please don’t fight us we’re trying to help you)_ that he trusts. 

Everyone’s so concerned with how disoriented he is, waiting for him to come back to himself. 

The truth is, without some sort of goal, without someone to protect? 

_(Without being able to hide behind the goal of protecting someone?)_

That’s all he’s held onto, for the last ten years. 

Without it, Finnick’s not sure he even exists.

“I fucked up,” Finnick continues, and it feels like drowning. “I wasn’t supposed to fight back.”

Prim shakes her head. “We couldn’t keep living like that. Any of us.” And her eyes are sweet and gentle and far too old for her face.

And maybe Finnick really _is_ selfish, because if he’d known all those months ago that he’d be here, going out of his mind while Annie was being hurt for _his_ actions - fuck, he’d have told Plutarch where he could shove it. He’d have drowned himself in the arena, or maybe even killed Katniss herself to keep Annie safe.

It’s wrong of him to think that, with Katniss’s little sister sitting feet away from him, just trying to help.

 _I’m not a good person,_ he wants to tell Prim. _You should go worry about someone else._

But he’s selfish, so he doesn’t.

She pushes the rope into his hands.

“Can you show me?” Prim coaxes him, in a voice Finnick imagines her using on injured animals. She seems like the type to collect strays - he thinks he remembers Katniss saying something snarky about a cat? - so really she’s like her sister in that way.

He looks down at the rope and for a moment he’s overcome by the scent of salt and vanilla.

His fingers start looping it automatically.

“This is a Carrick’s knot…”

Prim stays with him until the drugs overtake him and he falls asleep once more.

* * *

When he dreams, he doesn't dream about Annie screaming for him to help her.

He dreams about being out on the water. Prim's there with him, along with Katniss and Annie and his mother and brother and baby sister.

Finnick stands at the head of the ship, shoulders tense and scanning the horizon. Waiting for a threat.

Annie steps up behind him, pressing a soft kiss to his neck.

"There's no need for that," she tells him."We're safe. We're all safe. Just come be with us."

"I don't know who I am without this." He replies, lost.

This time she kisses him on the lips, eyes soft and adoring.

"You're just Finnick, of course." Annie says, like it's obvious. _Duh._ "You can be just Finnick. It's okay." 

He shakes his head.

"It's my fault. I'm _hurting_ you."

Her fingers wrap around his.

"It's not your fault. It was never your fault."

Finnick looks down at their knotted fingers.

"Then why does it hurt like it is?"

Annie doesn't have an answer to that.

* * *

He wakes up and it's all the same. Same bad smelling linens and yellow light and Annie far away in the Capitol hurting because of him.

But the rope is still there.

Finnick reaches for it and untangles the knots he'd left from his teaching session from Prim. 

And starts over once more.

**Author's Note:**

> This is... a bit random? But idk, it's just a character study of Finnick and part of the reason I think he was so lost in the beginning of Mockingjay.


End file.
